That’s a line from a book called “A Course in Miracles,” highlighted by Marianne Williamson.

Useful secular advice it is too… When things get difficult, it’s tempting to expect other people to make the running; to attempt reconciliation with us; to start building a bridge. Actually, if moving on is important to us, we need to go first. That’s the only reliable option.

So much, so obvious perhaps.

But it helps to think of what we are withholding; what more we could give; what being generous would mean.

And then to offer that.

Even if our effort is not reciprocated, a least we change our feelings about the situation.

We all have power to achieve things or to be a certain way, possibly more than we’re comfortable admitting. As Marianne Williamson said, “it’s not our darkness but our light that most frightens us.”

This is quite a different thing from “power over” other people which might come to us through formal authority. “Power to” comes from our presence and indeed our personal mastery, our sense of purpose and our authenticity, our wisdom.

Abraham Maslow and others would say it’s our “power to” rather than our “power over” that counts in the end.

The more “power to” others perceive us to have, the more we will be able to help them. They will believe in us more than they will believe in the power of the problem they are trying to overcome. Denying our own “power to” and shrinking away from it doesn’t serve the people we might help.

Here’s the thing…

What do you choose?

Do you use your “power to” as a force for good, or do you hide from it a little (or a lot) and diminish what you can do for the world and for yourself.